Saturday Week 30 Year 1

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. The Gospel reading for today reminds us of a virtue that defines who we are as a people who are called to lives of charity: humility. It is a virtue that reminds us of who we are in the eyes of God, a virtue that calls us to nothingness. And because of what it calls us to (invisibility), humility is a virtue that has become almost impossible to embody. We all want to be out there and to be visible; we don’t want to be reduced to nothing; and we spend our lives trying to rise from nothingness in order to become somebody. For this very reason, there is always a tendency to misunderstand or misinterpret humility. While we sometimes confuse humility with taking the back seat or racing for the least honorable seat in the house, true humility is about recognizing that every good in myself is a gift (from God), a gift that is meant to be given back to the Lord by being shared with others.
Humility is not about remaining passive or doing nothing when the situation calls us to do something. Humility is about doing something for the common good-be it for the family, faith community such as this one of ours, or even a larger society such as our country-but doing so faithfully even when we are not given due recognition. Humility is about remaining faithful to our calls, not because of remuneration but because it is our responsibility. Humility is about accepting where God has planted us and choosing to bloom there.